WALL STREET WHAT’S BEHIND THE CURTAIN?

In the next few posts I am going to be writing about the guests that I have on the UCW Radio Show that are in the finance world and of course I will be giving my outlook on certain points.

One of our guests recently was founder of Sky Capital Ross Mandell, now for those that don’t know who Ross is or just don’t read the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post or watch CNBC or listen to Bloomberg radio he was indicted in July 2009 I believe along with 5 other people on charges that stated he was allegedly involved in a fraud scheme that bilked investors out of over $140 million.

Now let me touch on a couple of points, Sky Capital was listed on the London Stock Exchange, although it was formed in the United States their assets and trading end of it were in the UK, that’s point number one. Point number two is that his arrest came on the heels of America’s favorite villain Bernie Maddoff being indicted and right before that good ole boy Alllen Stanford was nailed to the cross.

Bernie Maddoff was charged with 11 federal crimes which on paper showed that he defrauded clients out of over $65 Billion but in reality the actual losses were $18 Billion, their original investment with no interest included. Really like it mattered if it were $1 Billion or $100 Billion the reality is that the federal sentencing guidelines would’ve come out to the same, at the age of 72 it’s a life sentence for him.  But this guy was the former chairman of the NASDAQ and his fraud game was known for at least a decade prior to his arrest and in my opinion it probably was longer than that. The billion dollar question has always been why did it take so long? Was it because of who he was and the SEC now in line with the NASDAQ were turning a blind eye to it even after being tipped off so many times?  My opinion is that its possible and would make sense, but some think that the reasoning goes deeper than that.

Lets move to Allen Stanford, this guy came out of left field, the FBI and SEC tore his life apart on alleged fraud crimes, now did he or didn’t he do it? That’s for a court to decide but get this his business was ripped from him, his assets and money ripped from him and he sits in jail as we speak awaiting TRIAL in January 2011. He wasn’t even found guilty yet but Stanford has been in prison, was involved in two fights with other prisoners that landed him in the hospital ward and the judgment has not even been passed yet, there has to be something wrong with that in my opinion. If Stanford is guilty then let the jury decide that, let that gavel come down and the words GUILTY come out of the judges mouth and then he gets sentenced. This is America right?

Anyhow moving onto Ross Mandell, this is a guy that built a multi-million business in the UK, not in the USA, was indicted on fraud charges in the Southern District of New York for alleged crimes that took place in the UK. Now something doesn’t make sense to me on that, if a US citizen commits a crime lets say in Thailand well they pay for their crimes there right? The bamboo sticks come out, but what happens if they commit this crime and are on US soil, well then that country can file charges and apply for that person to be extradited or have Interpol involved etc, in short how can you be accused of crimes by the powers that be in the United States that were allegedly done elsewhere, it’s a good and solid question but I really don’t have that answer and I would love to get that answer from an attorney that is very well versed in that realm of the law.

So you have a massive scandal in Maddoff which is is serving a life sentence for, a pretty big one in Stanford if it sticks and then you have the Mandell situation which is tiny in comparison to the other two, again being innocent until proven guilty in the court of law is how things are suppose to go and that is the beauty of a democratic society is that you need to be proven guilty in front of a jury of your peers. But in some cases you are crucified prior to the rules should apply across the board for everyone.

So those are the broad strokes of each person and my opinion. In the 80’ and 90’s there were multi-million dollar scandals that hit Wall Street from Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken with the insider trading end of things to real fraud that can from the “Boiler Room” firms during that time such as Jordan Belfort’s Stratton Oakmont and many others. The point is people did go to jail and were given the opportunity to have their day in court but these arrests were not made to feed the media or the Internet because that wasn’t a factor, it was to investigate and hold people accountable. Out of the Maddoff, Stanford and Mandell cases the only one that I can say without question is getting what he deserves is Bernie Maddoff but he got it a decade or two late in my opinion.

My point is what was the actual underlying factor for all these cases to hit at the same time, was it political?, was it to appease the people? And show them that their interest is being looked after. See these are questions that conspiracy theorist love to answer because they can supply some concrete information to connect the dots and we’ll try to touch on some of these points on the show in the coming weeks.

Ross Mandell and myself spoke in depth about Wall Street, his situation and how he feels about everything.

As anyone reading my thoughts knows I am just writing and going, I’m not attempting to take a week to arrange thoughts for an article, this is just raw to the point and I put my opinions in place as needed.

I do welcome any financial journalist, author or SEC attorney to come on the show to give their spin on how the financial meltdown began and where we are headed in the coming years. 

Click here to listen to the Ross Mandell interview. http://www.ucwmagazine.com/rossmandell.html  

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